CHAPTER 5-3
-Watery Ways to the Palace-
"All right, guys… If you're wondering where we are I think we're getting PRETTY close to that palace that the Swamints were talking about." Blade explained, sitting on the floor, which happened to be wet.
"Wait a minute…" Sonic looked at the bottom of his sneakers. They were wet as well. "Why are my sneakers wet? Are we near the water? If that's true, then I don't wanna be here! Gimme Carrie, Kirby!"
"Poyo! (No way! I'm not going to give you my Pixl!)" Kirby retorted, preventing the blue hedgehog from taking his Pixl. "Poyo! (This is the Pixl I chose! You already have Screwdy!)"
"Sonic… Seriously. Calm down already!" Chopper retorted. "Every time we reach a new part of this chapter, we have to hear you complain. C'mon! Enough of it already! I bet you can handle more of this place!"
"…Fine. I won't complain. But if I'm the one that drowns, then it's your fault, you guys." Sonic pouted with his arms crossed.
"That would be your own problem," Blade smirked as he walked over to the edge of the platform. "All right, so how far do we need to find this Pure Heart thing? If it's at that palace, then that's good. Does anyone have an idea where it could be?"
"From what I'm getting, the Pure Heart is just through this place…" Tippi trailed, fluttering over to the edge with Chopper. "The palace might not be far from this very area…"
"Well that's a good thing!" Chopper tossed a fireball at the Strider that was wading on top of the water. "Well, what're we waiting for? We need to get a move on right now!"
With one jump, Chopper went sinking to the bottom of the water. Like before, there was still the stone ground that he felt. Up ahead was a slope going down to a pit. He gestured everyone to follow him.
Blade immediately pushed Sonic so he didn't have to cry about it. After Kirby made his way down into the water, he jumped in afterward. Although he hates the water, he can surely hold his breath for a little bit.
"Mmmmggfffh!" Blade pointed to the Chomper that was up ahead. He swam toward it and sliced it in half with his katana. He was lucky to have more Attack power then the others, that's for sure.
"Poyo… (Wow… That was pretty impressive!)" Kirby gaped.
"Although Blade couldn't understand Kirby, he knew that it was probably a compliment. But, of course, he needed air, just like Sonic, so they both immediately went to the air bubble near the edge of the little cliff they were near that led a bit deeper down into the ocean.
"We better be careful… It looks like things are about to get intense!" Chopper stated as he swam down to the ground. A Chomper tried to swoop down and attack, but with his hammer, he smashed it to the ground and defeated it within seconds.
Kirby attacked the other Chomper by squirting water at it, but it was pretty useless. Sonic was the one to deliver the final blow to the robotic fish.
"Man… I wish I could swim a bit faster…" Chopper groaned until he realized he was underwater. "Hey… Wait a second! I almost forgot about something! Why not inhale the water?"
Chopper inhaled some of the water. Once he swallowed some of it, got himself a golden crown containing a cresting wave on his head.
"See? I think this should prove to me MUCH more helpful!" Chopper blew two air bubbles for both Sonic and Blade to get in to act as Bubble Shields. The two sighed in relief as they breathed in the air.
"Whew! That's better! I didn't know you could do that!" Blade gasped. "Well, I KNEW that you could copy abilities…"
"I guess all I'm good at doing underwater is blowing some bubbles. …Or rather, my squirting can be a bit more useful now!" Chopper swam over to some steps that led up to a red door, where a Nepto was guarding.
"Take this!" Chopper squirted a large amount of water at the Nepto, knocking it back to the wall. "Dang it… All that the Water ability is good for underwater is for swimming faster. I mean, these guys can MOVE in water! Not a very good thing, if you ask me…"
Nevertheless, he decided to toss a fireball at the Nepto instead, knocking it away from the area. He and the other three that made it up to him walked through the door to find themselves in a small tunnel with a couple of spikes on the ceiling and even in a small little pit.
"Oh, goody… Just what I wanted to see… SPIKES!" Sonic face palmed.
"Oh, quit you're whining, Sonic," Blade said. "These things can be maneuvered easily if you know what you're doing. Just watch!" the ninja swam in the middle of the tunnel. The spikes weren't really hard to avoid anyway, so it wasn't too bad.
"Hmmmm… I see…" Sonic attempted to jump over the spikes on the ground. After going through there, they saw the tunnel got a bit bigger in height, having a platform moving up and down over by a platform with a ? Block.
Kirby swam up to the block and hit it, making a Super Shroom pop out. They all grabbed a piece and allowed it to sap into their HP.
"Whoa… Hold on a second… These things SAP onto your HP? What ever happened to using them as items?" Blade questioned.
"Oh, that's a bit of a tough question to answer…" Chopper trailed as he whacked a Chomper with his hammer. To his surprise, a Shroom Shake dropped from it. "Oh! We use Shroom Shakes now, I guess…"
"Anyway, I think we ought to move on," Blade swam on ahead through the tunnel, only to get sucked in by the current. He was able to grab a pole up ahead before he even had a chance to get gored by the spikes on the lower step.
Blade managed to move his arms to the upper part of the pole to allow himself to be carried away by the current.
"I'll go up next," Sonic allowed himself to be carried by the current, along with Chopper and Kirby (though Chopper had to hold onto Kirby, since he couldn't grab onto any of the poles).
In the end, the current pulled them up and they were soon rocketing out of the water from a huge amount of water shooting up, allowing them to land a bit high up over by higher ground.
"Whoa… That was a bit intense!" Blade shouted as he quickly shook himself in order to get dry. "I haven't had that much fun in a WHILE!"
"Well, looks like things are gonna get even more intense," Chopper stated as he pointed to the large slope down below leading to a loop and over to a wall that can be run up. A spring was on the ceiling if they ever reached top speed.
"Oh, man! This is going to be so cool!" Sonic started by going down the slope and curling into a ball just in case if anyone tries to attack him. Of course, this wasn't necessary…
"I might as well follow him," Chopper prepared himself for a Speed Dash, running in place in a figure-8 pattern. As soon as he finished, he went dashing down the slope and through the loop, where the spring on the wall brought him down to a slope to the right that would lead to another wall with a spring.
"Poyo?! (How come I'm not able to do something like that?!)" Kirby nearly gaped at what Chopper just performed.
"Dude… I know what you're probably saying, but you can eat things. It's best just to move on from here." Blade began to slide down the slope. "So are you coming or not?"
Kirby pouted as he slid down the slope. Instead of going through the loop, he took the slope down to the left where Chopper and Sonic went down. They came across another slope going down over by the water, but they noticed that both Chopper and Sonic were able to run on top of it.
"Wow… I can't believe I'm moving over water!" Chopper said in surprise. "That makes me feel like I'm a certain someone…"
Once he crossed through a loop, he ended up back underwater with Sonic. He was lucky to land his flaming foot on a Chomper swimming around in this area, or else he would've taken damage.
Once Kirby and Blade got to the two, they looked at their surroundings. They weren't too far from the surface. In fact, they WERE pretty close.
"Well, if you two ever need any air if your Bubble Shield disappears, then you ought to jump or something," Chopper suggested, looking up at the surface.
"I think I'll be perfectly fine," Sonic assured.
"Oh, really?" Blade raised an eyebrow. "What if we're deeper in the ocean and you end up losing your bubble shield? Huh? HUH?! Yeah, I thought so, Sonic!"
"…I didn't even say anything to you, Blade."
"Oh… I see…"
They decided to get a move on, walking through this little area to a door up ahead. A Strider was wading around in the water around here, but it was taken down after one slice from Blade's katana.
"Ya gotta love using this thing," Blade grinned as he swam over to the door. "This katana rocks!"
"Yeah, they do look cool," Chopper agreed.
"Too bad you don't have one," Blade smirked, kicking the door open to an area with a big slope going down, but they noticed some platforms circling around here. They knew that were deeper in the ocean.
"Better curl up into a ball here," Sonic curled up in a ball as he was taken down the slope. He ended up hitting a Chomper that was swooping down to attack, but he stopped when he saw a pit of spikes.
"That was TOO close! I thought for a second that I was going to fall down and get skewered!"
"You ALWAYS say stuff like that, that it isn't even funny," Chopper frowned as he swam over the pit of spikes and to one of the platforms in the water that led up to the surface.
With Blade helping Sonic over the pit, he brought him over to the platform leading to the surface. But he decided to slice a Chomper in half before he got to the platform.
"I sense some strange power up ahead…" warned Tippi as she followed Chopper out of the water and to stone ground. They saw this pink flower with a big, pink glowing orb inside of it.
"What the heck is that supposed to be?" Chopper asked.
"It's a teleporter. It should take you somewhere else in this place…" Tippi fluttered over to the end of the area. "From what I can see, we have a large ocean to cross… I don't see the palace anywhere…"
As the other three climbed out of the water, Sonic and Blade immediately shook themselves, while Kirby…didn't do anything.
"So, this brings you back to the good old days where we first met each other, doesn't it, Sonic?" Blade asked, nudging him.
"Oh, yeah… That first time I met ya…" Sonic nodded. "What ever happened to Bang and Night anyway? Did you ever get in contact with at least Night? I'm assuming you already spoke to Bang…"
"Oh, how are they doing right now? I think that they managed to find their way out of Chopper's planet and get back to Mobius. Man… Bang was being such a wuss! I can understand why Night left, but Bang? Such a coward!"
"Poyo, (Well that must be a bit embarrassing for him,)" Kirby snickered. "Poyo! (What? That's so funny how he just leaves you!)"
"Let's not bother laughing, Kirby," Chopper suggested. "I think we should just get going before anything bad happens." Chopper walked over to the teleporter and gestured everyone to jump on it.
Once Chopper jumped onto the pink orb that began to glow. A light blue beam came down upon him and transported him somewhere else in Pristine Palisade. The other three followed him through that.
The bottom of the ocean-
"Oh, you gotta be KIDDING ME!" Sonic pouted as they found themselves deep in the ocean. The ground was no longer made of stone, but more like a marble this time, with the cover being a light blue color. Some capsules with blue glowing energy were on the ground as well and also some small, green plants.
"Well, looks like there's no going back," Blade stated as he saw no teleporter.
"No going back?! Oh, come on! You're telling me that there's no way out of this ocean?" Sonic looked at the background and also looked up. The surface was incredibly hard to see. "Yeah… I think we're in some deep yogurt here."
"So what? You have those Bubble Shields on you! I don't see any problem with that…" Chopper walked over to the edge to find four platforms circling around. There was another set of platforms circling around that led to the other side of the large gap.
Kirby looked down to see if there were any bottomless pits. "Poyo! (Nope! No bottomless pits in sight! I guess things should be just fine…I guess!)"
"Then we shouldn't have a problem crossing through this gap," Chopper used his swimming speed with his Water ability on him to swim over the platforms and land on the ground ahead. Kirby followed him, but he had a harder time keeping up, so he inhaled water to get the Water ability. Unlike Chopper, his feet were red and not purple.
"Poyo! (Now traveling underwater should be MUCH easier!)" he stated as he landed on the ground. Blade was forced to drag Sonic over to the other side, but he didn't have a huge problem with it.
"Wow… I can't believe we're incredible deep in the water." Sonic panted. "How cold is it down here anyway? I can't exactly tell whether the water's cold or not."
"The water's pretty warm down here, to be honest," Chopper stated. "I think it's because we're so far from the surface that it gets a bit warmer. I think that's what I know of so far…"
"If that's the reason, then I don't think it should be a big problem traveling through here…" Tippi trailed as she spotted spikes over by the ledge below them.
Chopper made a jump over by the ledge, but he made sure not to touch the spikes. He ended up taking a Chomper out with his fireball, on the other hand.
"Hey, Chopper… I don't know why, but I feel like we've discovered Atlantis. Don't you think so?" Blade questioned.
"Atlantis? I've already discovered that place with my friends, Vivian, Scrub, Kirby, Shadower and Bombette! We KNOW about that place already!"
"Poyo! (Yeah! It was an interesting discovery for sure!)" Kirby squealed before frowning. "Poyo… (Too bad we didn't tell anyone else about it…)"
"Eh, who cares? I think it's better off being kept as a secret. …Just don't go telling people that we found that place, or else we might be in a heap of trouble…" suggested Chopper.
"You got it!" Sonic gave a thumbs up before jumping down to a lower part of the ground. There really wasn't much around except for these star-shaped robotic enemies covered in spikes.
After gathering information, Chopper discovered that these things are called Spinning Axis. It's pretty much impossible to jump on these guys or touch them with a Spin Jump.
"I guess I should hit these guy with something that doesn't involve me touching it," Chopper slammed his hammer on the Spinning Axis, but it was soon sliced in half by Blade's katana.
"Heh heh heh! That was fun!" Blade grinned as he swam over to the door ahead. The other three followed him down to an area with two ? Blocks separated from each other and a bunch of Spinning Axis, Chompers and Neptos patrolling.
Although it looked like a HUGE risk to just fight them all, Blade hit the second ? Block, making a Mega Star pop out, to his surprise.
"Whoa… What the heck is that?" he questioned.
"That thing's a Mega Star. If you grab it, you'll turn into an 8-bit version of yourself in massive proportions. Basically, you're able to destroy EVERYTHING in sight, which I think is GOOD! …But it doesn't last very long, which stinks." Chopper explained.
"Well I'm gonna try it out!" Blade clenched his fist that he caught the Mega Star on and he began to feel a huge amount of energy within him. That's when he grew to great proportions as an 8-bit version of himself.
"Ho ho ho! Now look who's incredibly awesome now?" Blade grinned as he stomped his way through all of the Neptos, Chompers and Spinning Axis that were in sight. Unfortunately, being down underwater, it slowed him down a little.
"We better follow him!" Chopper suggested as he swam over to Blade without touching him. He stopped when Blade turned back to normal and was already over by the red door.
"Well, what do you know? I got over here! Isn't that just amazing?" he asked.
As they entered through the door, they walked into another area where they had to drop down. Chopper started by sinking down to the bottom of the area, where he saw a couple of steps he had to go both up and down to the left.
"So we have to stop going right now? Interesting…" Sonic pondered as he moved on ahead, only to get hit by a Spinning Axis.
"Mmmmmgggfffh!" Sonic began to choke as he rushed over to an air bubble. He almost drowned, but the air bubble barely saved him.
"HA! Now you don't have a Bubble Shield on you!" Blade scoffed before the Spinning Axis struck him after its spinning attack, causing his Bubble Shield to pop like Sonic's, making him choke.
"Well, I guess that's what he gets for trying to mock someone," Chopper stated as he smashed the Spinning Axis with his hammer. "On the other hand, don't try to attack these things, Sonic."
There were some platforms that they had to swim up before they got up to a platform with a pipe that looked like they could all fit themselves through.
Sonic went first, curling up into a ball and letting the pipe transport him somewhere else in the ocean. Blade went up next, trying his best to curl up into a ball and follow him. Chopper and Kirby seemingly had no problem when it came to traveling, due to their shape.
The very bottom-
"Wow… Looks like we're at the bottom of the ocean." Chopper gaped as he placed his hand on the sandy floor. "Yeah, this is it all right. It also feels a lot darker than before. Not TOO dark, but kinda dark."
"Poyo… (I can agree on that…)" Kirby shivered before taking notice of the pink orb up ahead. "Poyo! (Chopper! I can see the teleporter!)"
"Wait a minute… I sense something else below these sands…" Tippi paused. "Chopper… I would suggest using my power to investigate what's going on…"
"No problem! …I guess." Chopper was starting to feel nervous, since it started to get quiet. Luckily for both Sonic and Blade, an air bubble was right by them for them to inhale. "Gee… It feels kinda scary down here, now that I think about it."
Chopper began to use Tippi's powers to investigate the area. With his eyes emitting a ray of rainbow light, he was able to discover some kind of blue glowing bulb sitting on top of the sand.
"What is this thing? It feels so…strange…" Tippi trailed as she turned back into her Pixl form.
"WHO DARES INTERRUPT MY SLEEP?!" the ground began to shake as an orange angler fish rose up from the sands. It was a bit big, but not huge like Dracktail. It was bigger than O'Chunks, that's for sure.
The angler fish looked down at Chopper, Kirby, Sonic and Blade with its blue eyes. "Who are you people?! Nobody has disturbed me in many years!"
"And who might you be?" questioned Tippi.
"I am the great Lord Droolhead! I sleep under these sands until my time of reckoning has come for King Neptunian! Now, tell me what you want right now! I know you're here for a reason…"
"Well… Ummmmmmm…" Chopper stammered. "We just wanted to go to King Neptunian's Palace so we could have some pizza with him! He invited us to his palace, after all…"
"Don't lie to me, you nitwit!" Lord Droolhead snapped. "If he were to invite you to his palace, you wouldn't be taking this way! You four are obviously going to his palace to claim the Pure Heart! And once you do that, you'll probably drain my home where I'll shrivel up and die!"
"Well… Something like that…" Tippi trailed. "But I don't think that that last part is something we would like to do…"
"LIARS! I can't believe such a story like that! If you refuse to listen, then a watery grave shall await you all!" Droolhead growled as he swooped down to zap the four with its electricity on its bulb.
"Whoa… This thing is impressive!" Chopper panted as he jumped away from the large fish. "I ought to see what you have to say about it, Tippi. You might give some interesting info on it!"
Using Tippi's powers, Chopper was able to gather information on Droolhead. The following information he got was:
"That's Lord Droolhead. He's supposedly a king of the ocean… Or, that's what he says, at least… Max HP is 40. Attack is 4. Defense is 2. While normal attacks will do the same damage to it, the boils on it are its weak point… I would recommend hitting those first… This large angler fish can only attack you with its electric attack from its antenna… That's not very threatening, but as you bring his HP down, his attacks will become faster and he might even shoot bubbles at you… All that matters is that you stop this monster from blocking you…"
"Let's see if I can actually hurt this fish," Chopper started by squirting water at Droolhead, but he realized that the water he squirted did nothing. "Crud… That was just useless!"
"Poyo? (What? Do you mean that these abilities are completely useless? …Wait, then I can't do a thing about this fight!)" Kirby began to cry.
"Wait, Kirby! I think squirting water up close might do something! …But we need to aim for its weak point. Blade! I want you to stab those boils with your katana. That might weaken it a little!"
Blade nodded before inhaling a bubble and he swam toward Droolhead, he tried to swat him with his fins.
"What's this? A challenger?" Droolhead tried to whack Blade with one of its flippers, but the ninja still managed to dodge the attack and stab the angler fish in one of his boils, making blood squirt out.
"AIEEEE! My precious boils!" screamed Droolhead. "Oh… You'll pay for that, you fool! YOU'LL PAY!"
Blade was swatted to the ground by Droolhead's flipper. That's when he started to choke from the water. He immediately got up and inhaled an air bubble to grab some air.
Sonic made his next move, trying his best to run after the angler fish. "I hate that I'm fighting this thing while being underwater… It makes it even more difficult to win this fight!"
Sonic could only attack Droolhead with a simple Homing Attack. Even so, he got zapped by the angler fish's electric attack, knocking the blue hedgehog onto Blade.
"Well, let's see what we can pull off," Chopper squirted water at Droolhead, but it did a slight amount of damage. That's when he immediately tossed a fireball at another boil, burning it off.
"AARRGHHHH! Why are you doing this?!" exclaimed Droolhead as he knocked Chopper back with his flippers.
Kirby swam over to Droolhead's antenna and he squirted water at it. It didn't do much, but it did make Droolhead zap itself.
"Away with you, pink thing!" Droolhead zapped Kirby with his bulb, but the pink puffball didn't give up yet. He swam over to one of his boils and squirted water at it, causing more screaming.
"Stop that right now!" screamed Droolhead as he tried to swat Kirby away again. "Ugh… I guess you are more than you seem…"
Blade smirked as he tossed a shuriken at Droolhead's face, piercing through his scaly skin. It screamed loudly, allowing the ninja cat to toss Hommissile straight at his face afterward.
"I gotta say… You all are making this fight pretty easy…" Tippi stated as she watched Chopper toss a fireball straight at Droolhead.
"Well, you know what they say… Well, actually, I don't know what they say." Chopper used a spinning flaming kick on Droolhead to deal some heavy damage to one of his boils. He only had one more left on him, which didn't seem so bad.
"Oh, how rude of you to harm me like this!" Droolhead grit his teeth as he tried to chomp on Blade's foot, which didn't work for him. "It's time I brought this fight to a whole new level!"
Droolhead opened his mouth, letting out a large amount of disgusting bubbles. The purple ones resembled poisonous bubbles that would poison anyone if they got hit by them.
Chopper and Kirby fought back by simply spitting out other bubbles to counter the poison ones. Once those bubbles got in Droolhead's mouth, he began to cough harshly.
"Grrrrrr! You're going to pay for that!" Droolhead zapped both Chopper and Kirby with his bulb, stripping them of their Water ability and making themselves look a bit dark from the electrocution.
"Mmmmmmggfffh!" Blade clenched his katana and swam toward Lord Droolhead. He was able to leave a scar on the side of the angler fish with his katana, but that's about it. He got tossed away easily by him.
"Poyo… (This isn't finished yet…)" Kirby quickly shook his head as he swam toward Droolhead. He wanted to make sure he was RIGHT at the boil that he needed to squirt. Although it might not be powerful, it's all he needs to defeat him.
Sonic attempted at the boil, but when he was losing oxygen, he immediately grabbed an air bubble, preventing him from attacking Lord Droolhead.
"Well, we're practically screwed if we don't have some sort of miracle or something…" Chopper groaned.
"Poyo! (Not yet!)" Kirby squirted some water at Lord Droolhead's boil, causing it to pop and making the angler fish scream as a small amount of blood squirted from him.
"Uunnggghh… It… It hurts so much…" moaned Droolhead as he began to turn over. "Everything's starting to feel…dark."
"Wait… So this thing is SERIOUSLY dying from being squirted at? That's just…weird." Chopper said with a confused look on his face.
Once Lord Droolhead was gone, both Sonic and Blade immediately rushed to the teleporter as fast as they could. It seemed like they couldn't hold their breath for much longer.
"Poyo… (Wow… They REALLY want to get some air for some reason…)" Kirby commented.
"Well what can you expect? They can't breathe underwater." Chopper and Kirby both went into the teleporter. To their surprise, it took them all the way up to the surface and in front of a large palace where a Star Block was floating by.
"Huff… Huff… Huff… Oh, FINALLY! We're… We're out of that mess!" Sonic gasped and coughed. "Air… AIR! Sweet, sweet air! We're finally reunited!"
"Uhhhh… I guess I'll go hit the Star Block while you make out with your 'air'." Chopper said with a blank look as he walked over to the Star Block and smashed it.
END OF CHAPTER
Relieved to be out of the ocean, Sonic immediately walked over to the front entrance of the palace. "So we're finally at King Neptunian's Palace, huh?" he said while looking at the entrance. "I don't know why, but it looks like this place reaches down to the bottom of the ocean… Do we REALLY need to go far down there?" "Uhhh… Of COURSE we need to! That's where the Pure Heart is!" Chopper replied with a strange look. As they opened the front door, they were all surprised by the outcome.
If you didn't know, Lord Droolhead is an idea that came into my head after looking at Lord Woo Fak Fak from Banjo-Tooie. I think some of you probably knew that already...
Next part: The four heroes enter the Palace of the Sea and see how disastrous it is!